Leafing Through the Pages - 2009

The nominations were made, the votes have been tallied and the list has been compiled. Leafing Through the Pages, the book discussion group of the Sterling Morton Library, will be reading and discussing the following works during 2009:

• January 8, 2009 - Helphand, Kenneth. Defiant gardens : making gardens in wartime, 2006.
• February 12, 2009 - Frome, Michael. Strangers in high places : the story of the Great Smoky Mountains, 1966.
• March 12, 2009 - Dillard, Annie. Teaching a stone to talk : expeditions and encounters, 1982.
• April 9, 2009 - Friedman, Thomas. Hot, flat and crowded : why we need a green revolution--and how it can renew America, 2008.
• May 14, 2009 - Smith, Carl. The plan of Chicago : Daniel Burnham and the remaking of the American city, 2006.
• June 11, 2009 - Ballowe, Jim. A man of salt and trees : the life of Joy Morton, 2009.
• July 9, 2009 - Maloney, Cathy Jean. Chicago gardens : the early history, 2008.
• August 13, 2009 - Johnson, Wendy. Gardening at the dragon's gate : at work in the wild and cultivated world, 2008.
• September 10, 2009 - Campanella, Thomas J. Republic of shade : New England and the American elm, 2003.
• October 8, 2009 - Koeppel, Dan. Banana : the fate of the fruit that changed the world, 2008.
• November 12, 2009 - Kull, Robert. Solitude : seeking wisdom in extremes : a year alone in the Patagonia wilderness, 2008.
• December 10, 2009 - Zwinger, Ann. Wind in the rock, 1978.

Full particulars: Meeting the second Thursday of each month from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. in the Sterling Morton Library of The Morton Arboretum

Join us for a morning of spirited conversation, discussion and dialogue!

Articles of note in the Sterling Morton Library : December’s offerings

These are some recent articles that can be found within the journal collection of the Sterling Morton Library. Please visit the Library to discover the incredible botanical and horticultural resources that await you! If you are unable to visit the Library and interested in reviewing one of these articles, I would be delighted to help you at rhassert@mortonarb.org.

Brooke, Cassandra. Conservation and adaptation to climate change. Conservation Biology, v. 22, no. 6, p. 1471-1476.

Dimke, K.C., S.K. Still and D.S. Gardner. Effect of overwintering environment on the survival of 30 species of herbaceous perennials. Journal of Environmental Horticulture, v. 26, no. 4, p. 222-228.

Helmreich, Anne. Body and soul : the conundrum of the aesthetic garden. Garden History : Journal of the Garden History Society, v. 36, no. 2, p. 273-288.

New plants for 2009. American Nurseryman, v. 208, issue 12, p. 19-73.
Read all about them!

Orr, David W. Land use and climate change. Conservation Biology, v. 22, no. 6, p. 1372-1374.

Suchecki, Paul F. and David J. Gibson. Loss of Cornus florida L. leads to significant changes in the seedling and sapling strata in an eastern deciduous forest. Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society, v. 135, no. 4, p. 506-515.

Vanderwel, Mark C., Hilary C. Thorpe, Jennifer L. Shuter, John P. Caspersen, and Sean C. Thomas. Contrasting downed woody debris dynamics in managed and unmanaged northern hardwood stands. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, v. 38, no. 11, p. 2850-2861.

Discover the plants of the winter solstice!

Our morning with Joel!

Joel Greenberg, author and raconteur, joined us at Thursday’s gathering of Leafing Through the Pages, the book discussion group of the Sterling Morton Library. The group had selected his recently published Of prairie, woods, & water : two centuries of Chicago nature writing for our final discussion of the year. Happily, Joel agreed to join us and share his unique insight/stories/color about nature writing and nature writers of our region.

The Sterling Morton Library has an extensive collection of works by and about many of these writers including May T. Watts, Donald Culross Peattie, Henry Chandler Cowles, Edwin Way Teale, Jens Jensen, and a host of others! This is a sampling of some of the works on display during our discussion:

• Angle, Paul M. Prairie State: impressions of Illinois, 1673-1967, 1968.
• Bailey, Eli Stillman. The sand dunes of Indiana : the story of an American wonderland told by camera and pen, 1924, c1917.
• Cowles, Henry Chandler. A spring flora for high schools, 1915.
• Grese, Robert E. Jens Jensen : maker of natural parks and gardens, 1992.
• Long, Judith Reick. Gene Stratton-Porter : novelist and naturalist, 1990.
• Pepoon, Herman Silas. An annotated flora of the Chicago area : with maps and many illustrations from photographs of topographic and plant features, 1927.
• Quaife, Milo Milton. Checagou : from Indian wigwam to modern city, 1673-1835, 1933.
• Swink, Floyd and Gerould Wilhelm. Plants of the Chicago region, 1994.
• Tillson, Christiana Holmes. A woman's story of pioneer Illinois, 1919.
• Watts, May Theilgaard. Reading the landscape : an adventure in ecology,1957.
• Woods, John. Two years' residence in the settlement on the English Prairie, 1968.

During Joel’s meeting with us, he described some interesting natural areas in our region to visit. Since our gathering, a sharp-eyed group member found and forwarded this article by Joel -- A Naturalist's Tour of Southern Lake Michigan. If you weren't able to join us for Thursday’s discussion, there is a terrific WBEZ interview by Donna Seaman with Joel (appropriately presented on Earth Day) on Open Books Radio. Scroll through the page to Non-Fiction, select Joel's interview - and share in their remarkable conversation!

A dusting of snow!

We recently received our first significant snowfall at the Morton Arboretum. On a recent lunchtime walk through the collections, I was reminded of the singular beauty of this season. Tree architecture and structure often take center stage for intrepid hikers at this time of the year. Consider the sharp contrast between the snow covered ground, the tree’s bark pattern, form, habit and branch outline -- all set against the backdrop of a sapphire blue sky. In addition to trees, shrubs and vines, you'll discover that wildflowers and weeds encrusted with frost and snow also have a simple beauty.

Encouraged to take a winter walk at the Arboretum or through your very own neighborhood? Stop by the Sterling Morton Library and peruse some of these resources:

• Tree bark : a color guide by Hugues Vaucher
• Bark by Catherine Chambers
• Bark : the formation, characteristics, and uses of bark around the world photographs by Kjell B. Sandved ; text by Ghillean Tolmie
• Trees in a winter landscape by Alice Upham Smith
• Trees in winter : their study and identification by Albert Francis Blakeslee and Chester Deacon Jarvis
• Studies of trees in winter : a description of the deciduous trees of northeastern America by Annie Oakes Huntington ; with an introduction by Charles Sprague Sargent
• A guide to wildflowers in winter by Carol Levine
• Winter : an ecological handbook by James C. Halfpenny, Roy Douglas Ozanne
• Weeds in winter written and illustrated by Lauren Brown